Kansas’s Udoka Azubuike Has Found The Formula For Efficiency: Dunk A Lot

Nearly half of Udoka Azubuike’s career field-goal attempts have been dunks.

Mitchell Layton / Getty Images

The Big 12 Conference’s reigning player of the week put everything on display last weekend. Kansas center Udoka Azubuike drop-stepped, elbowed and spun his way through the TCU defense in Fort Worth, Texas, to help seal Jayhawks head coach Bill Self’s 700th career victory.

Azubuike might just take down Tacko Fall

NCAA men’s basketball players with the best career field-goal percentages, for players who attempted a minimum of 400 field goals and made a minimum of four per game

College Career

Player

Team

Height

Final Season

Total Games

Career FG%

Udoka Azubuike

Kansas

7-0

2019-20

79

74.9%

Tacko Fall

UCF

7-6

2018-19

115

73.9

Steve Johnson

Oregon State

6-10

1980-81

116

67.8

Michael Bradley

Villanova*

6-10

2000-01

100

67.7

Murray Brown

Florida State

6-8

1979-80

106

66.8

Evan Bradds

Belmont

6-7

2016-17

129

66.7

Lee Campbell

Missouri St.*

6-7

1989-90

88

66.5

Warren Kidd

Middle Tenn.

6-9

1992-93

83

66.4

Todd MacCulloch

Washington

7-0

1998-99

115

66.4

Joe Senser

West Chester

6-5

1978-79

96

66.2

Kevin Magee

UC Irvine

6-8

1981-82

56

65.6

Orlando Phillips

Pepperdine

6-7

1982-83

58

65.4

Through Feb. 9, 2020.

*Michael Bradley played previously for Kentucky; Lee Campbell played previously for Middle Tennessee.

Sources: NCAA, Sports-Reference.com

Since 1992, there have been five individual seasons in which a player attempted at least 150 shots and made more than 75 percent of them. Azubuike has two. Only one of the others was produced by a player from a major conference.4

Synergy Sports Technology has tracked points per possession back to the 2005-06 season. As of Tuesday, there were about 25,500 Division I player-seasons that accounted for at least 150 offensive possessions from 2005-06 through 2019-20. Of those, Azubuike’s sophomore and senior seasons rank fifth and sixth in adjusted field-goal percentages.

Azubuike is only third on his team in field-goal attempts and sits outside the top 20 in usage rate among his Big 12 peers. His most notable postseason accolade is likely a third-team all-conference nod he earned as a sophomore.5 But he is on his third consecutive season as a de facto starter, logging more than 20 minutes per game for one of college basketball’s true blue bloods.

“There’s a lot of people out there that have numbers on me and stuff,” Azubuike said after a game last week. “But if you watch, I get double- and triple-teamed every time. So I normally don’t get the points that everybody is going to get.”

As was the case with Fall, a great deal of Azubuike’s efficiency is attributable to how close to the basket his shots come. But while Fall often looked like a beanpole on the court, Azubuike, the Big 12’s leading rebounder, looks more like a bulldozer. He has never taken a shot more than 17 feet from the basket, according to Synergy Sports. Nearly half of his career field-goal attempts have been dunks, and since he entered college, no player has stuffed the ball through the hoop more. Azubuike’s 122 dunk total his sophomore season remains the most ever tracked over a single season.6

If Azubuike scored, it was probably on a dunk

Share of Kansas center Udoka Azubuike’s total shots and made baskets that were dunks, by season and for his career

Attempts

Made baskets

Season

Total shots

Dunks

Share

Total shots

Dunks

Share

2019-20*

170

78

45.9%

129

74

57.4%

2018-19

78

35

44.9

55

33

60.0

2017-18

274

132

48.2

211

122

57.8

2016-17

35

14

40.0

22

13

59.1

Career

557

259

46.5

417

242

58.0

* Through Feb. 9, 2020.

Source: BartTorvik.com

It should come as no surprise that when posting up, no player in the Big 12 sees more hard double teams than the 2.3 per game Azubuike gets, according to Synergy Sports. He scores more than a point per possession on post-ups, offensive rebounds and cuts to the basket, in transition and the half court, and on rolls to the basket in pick-and-roll sets. And since his sophomore season, he hasn’t finished lower than the 96th percentile in overall scoring efficiency.

Over his career, Azuibuike has developed touch with both hands and grown incredibly deft at sealing off the post and creating over-the-top entry passes for his guards.

His conditioning has greatly improved, as evidenced by his ability to play long stretches without a break and his more active role in transition.

This is the second season in which he leads the conference in player efficiency rating, which checks out, given that he currently has the highest career PER in Big 12 history. Box Plus/Minus, which attempts to measure a player’s contribution to his or her team, tabs him as fourth in conference history in the career version of its metric.

All of this translates to team success. This season, with Azubuike on the court, Kansas has the equivalent of a top-10 offense in effective field-goal percentage (55.2 percent). On the other side of the floor, the Jayhawks have the equivalent of the best defense in the country by effective field-goal percentage and defensive efficiency.

“It’s the difference you make when you’re in the game,” Azubuike said. “And I think when I’m in the game, I make a lot of difference. I draw a lot of attention, and that helps my teammates out.”

Should Kansas make a deep run in March, it will be incumbent on Azubuike to shoulder the burden on both ends of the floor, just as he has over his college career.

Footnotes

A rare occurrence for TCU, which has run zone 35 possessions all season, according to Synergy Sports.

Dayton’s Obi Toppin leads the nation with 77.

A hand injury ended both his freshman and junior seasons, causing him to miss more than half of each respective season.

UCLA’s Jelani McCoy in 1996-97.

He was just named one of the 20 players on the Wooden Award watch list.

Since the 2009-10 season, according to BartTorvik.com.

Josh Planos is a writer based in Omaha. He has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Washington Post. @JPlanos